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holding blood and spirits. The Bengal Kurmis, or Kunbis, mark the brow of the bride and bridegroom with red lead and sometimes with blood.85
SPIRIT BASIS OF BELIEF AND CUSTOM.
The object of the round red brow-mark worn by unwidowed women and other Hindus, which was probably originally of blood, seems to be to keep off spirits. It is also with the view of scaring evil spirits that, on investment, the brow of the Rajput chief is marked with blood taken from a man's thumb, the ceremony being a relic of human sacrifice. In Bengal the worshippers of Durgâ, when a buffalo is offered, daub their bodies with earth soaked in the blood, and dance, singing indecent songs. Blood is drunk by Hindu Sâktâs.87 The Indian overlord used to drink the blood of a defeated warrior, that the fierce spirit of the slain might be housed in him. Bhima, one of the five Pandavas, when he killed his consin Dussasan, drank his blood; even Sitâ, the gentle wife of Râma, when she killed the thousand-headed Ravana, drank the blood of her victim.88 Among the Beni-Israil, at marriages, the bridegroom and bride walk along a path sprinkled with blood from the marriage porch to the house-door.
Among the Jews, when a murdered body was found, a heifer was brought from the nearest city, and the elders came and washed their hands over it in some waste land, and its head was cut off. On the tenth day of the Jewish seventh month, the Jews sprinkled the Holy of Holies with bullocks' blood. Blood is life. So the Jewish commandment runs:-"The flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat." So, in Egypt, to keep off the spirit of death, the Israelites, smeared the side-posts and the upper door-posts with blood. This show of blood prevented the destroyer coming into the house to smite the inmates. The horns of the Jewish altar were smeared with bullocks' blood. Moses sprinkled hal: the blood on the altar.
When a sick child is brought to a Chinese priest, he bleeds the child, mixes the blood with water, and dipping into the mixture a seal engraved with the name of an idol, marks the child's wrists, neck, back, and forehead. In China, rags dipped in a criminal's blood and tied to a sick-bed cure the patient. In China, when a person is sick or possessed by an evil spirit, a goat's blood is smeared on his forehead."
125
The Australians, when they kill an animal, rub some of the blood on the idol's mouth." The Gallas of East Africa, when they cut a cow's throat, suck the gushing blood.100 Warm blood is a favourite dranght with almost all Africans. The Bedouins of Nubia are very fond of the warm blood of a sheep. Human blood is sprinkled on the tombs of the ancestors of the kings of Dahomey, when their help is wanted in war. The Hovas of Madagascar anoint the head-stones of tombs with blood. Among the South Australians, when a boy is ten years old, several men cut themselves and smear the boy with their blood. The AmericanIndian Kiowas of New Mexico drink warm buffalo blood.
Pliny notices that blood on door-posts keeps off enchantments. Early men delight in drinking blood; so the Australians, Fijians, Vateans, Haidalis and Vampyres are bloodsuckers. Greek ghosts drink the blood of the sacrifice, and the Mexicans' whole ritual consisted of offerings of blood. In Greece, the priest of Cybele entered a room, whose roof was full of holes, a ball was killed on the roof and the priest was drenched with a shower of blood.10 In North Europe, till A. D. 900, the blood of the sacrifice was mixed with ale, and
4 Op. cit. p. 272.
ss Op. cit. p. 319. se Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. p. 117. Dábistán, Vol. II. p. 155. Ward's View of the Hindus, Vol. I. p. 146. Deuteronomy, xxi. Balfour's Encyclopædia, Vol. V. p. 12. Exodus, xii. 7. 93 Op. cit. xii. 23. Op. cit. xxiv. 6. Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 165. 1 Op. cit. p. 397.
1 Genesis, ix. 4. 24 Op. cit. xxix. 12.
Gray's China, Vol. 1. p. 102. "Hahn's Tauni Goam, p. MI.
Op. cit. Vol. II. p. 31. Africa, p. 189. Dahomey, Vol. II. p. 167.
Sibree's Madagascar, p. 227.
100 New's East 3 Burton's
2 Burckhardt's Nubia, p. 149. Wallace's Australasia, p. 101. Pliny's Natural History, Book xxviii. Chap. 7. Op. cit. Vol. I. p. 290.
Jour. Ethno. Soc. Vol. I. p. 313.
Spencer's Princ. of Sociology, Vol. I. p. 290. 10 Maurice's Indian Antiquities, Vol. V. p. 958.
